Girls Teaching Girls To Code

Thank you, awesome idea! My high school daughter would love the opportunity. Do you plan to expand the program to other states? Airfare and fees for the program could be paid by the applicant. We do not have any programs like this in Illinois.

Congratulations from Project A.L.O.E! It's a great idea and we wish you all the best!

Congrats from Project A.L.O.E!

Congrats on winning the grant!

sounds great!! good luck!!!!

That's such a great idea! Never let girls doubt their abilities. We should all be able to reach for our goals. :) Thanks for helping make dreams come true!

This sounds awesome, Heidi! I, too, wish this had been around when I was in high school. :)

What a great idea, Heidi! Good luck with this first venture and beyond

I wish this was around when I was in high school! Great idea!

I really like this idea! as a girl coder who's worked in the bay area, I can definitely tell you that more of us would be good for the tech industry. :P

great idea!

This is a terrific idea, Heidi. Mentors have a good track record for encouraging young people, and the gender specificity of this is great. You have the skills to pull this idea off, too. Good luck!

This is a wonderful idea! I have no doubt that you can inspire girls to enjoy coding. Let me know if there is anything we can help with.

This is a fabulous idea, Heidi. Let me know if you need any resources from the Wellesley CS dept. to make your idea come to fruition!

woohooooo coding like a gir!!

This is a great idea!

This is a great idea!

This is an amazing idea! I'm currently studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at Cal and I would love to get involved. Please let me know how I can help!!

SO GREAT!! :D

SO GREAT!! :D

SO GREAT!! :D

This is a FANTASTIC idea! Wish I could have done it in high school.

I LOVE this idea!!!!

Awesome idea!! We definitely need more women in the computer science field! Love it!

Hi Heidi! I think this is an awesome idea. I work for a tech company in Palo Alto and I'm pretty sure our Women in Tech group would love to get involved in this somehow... is there any way I can contact you? Thanks!

Thanks for your interest! We can start by connecting on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/heidi-wang/14/952/538) and then go from there. Hope to hear from you soon!

cool idea. unclear on whether you already have prospective mentors lined up. if not, should consider reaching out to female startup founders. i bet a bunch would be open to helping, and many of them have inspiring stories

There has been a lot of interest from women in the Stanford community around teaching at the event. It would be awesome to see female startup founders (like Jessica at Getaround!) make a guest appearance. Thanks for the suggestion!

Suggest you try for local sponsors for space and computers. As for printing, probably better off with minimal print marketing piece and substance on a flash drive take away. All those employers at The Farm likely to jump at the chance to sponsor food etc. If there is a Key Club at the high schools you should contact its President to promote and assist you locating HS Girls. Key Club is an International social service club affiliated with Kiwanis International.. Good Luck.

Definitely looking into connecting with local sponsors. Great ideas!

What a great idea & I love the video! I've highlighted your idea @ http://www.dayofthetechgirl.org/act.html. Good luck & keep me posted, so I can update Teen Tech Girl followers!

Wow thank you for sharing the link! Great website!

Wonderful idea Heidi! All the best from Wellesley and good luck!

I wish I saw this when I was in high school haha

The video is spot-on. We need to help show that the ratio isn't as bad as it might seem. Sites like Women 2.0 and Change the Ratio are moving the bar forward, but events like this can really get straight to young people. What a great idea!

Awesome. I will role enroll Isabel when she hits high school in a couple of years!

Congrats Heidi!! Great idea!

Love this idea! I'm tired of seeing apps/ websites/ games/ user interfaces that clearly look like they were designed by dudes!

This is such a great idea! Would've definitely loved this as a high schooler. :)

Awesome! I love your idea and I am glad it is possible to carry out the plan through GOOD! It is so important for people especially girls(women) to step out the comfort zone and stereotype that woman are only good at certain stuff... Personally it took me a long time to realize that I have the potential. Somehow I felt I realized it too late. I wish I had mentor like this when I was in high school!!!

great idea, Heidi, and a model that women in CS programs at other schools can follow as well!

A wonderful idea. As a engineering manager for two decades, I always found women software engineers are as strong as, if not stronger than their male peers. Unfortunately, there are not enough women going into this field. I believe that the lack of early exposure is the primary reason. We need more women engineers inspiring others to join them. Paul Chan (retired VP of Engineering, VMware)

I was definitely one of those girls who assumed everything that you said about CS. I have yet to take a CS class, but hopefully in the near future I will have the chance to. This idea hits home in my personal life because in high school we had majors and the computer science majors were all boys except for two girls. That major was known for being dominated by men and it really dissuaded most girls from even considering CS as a major. This is a great way to get more girls interested in engineering and hopefully more people will be inspired by this program and have similar ones all over the country. The world needs more innovators.

Awesome idea! Would love to see more CS interest generated among gals!

This is such a great idea- we very much need more women to join the technical fields.

What a fabulous idea! Giving these highschool girls the knowledge gives them the power to achieve more and aim for careers that may be more male dominated. In a world that is completely surrounded by technology this would definitely empower growing girls!

I think this is a GREAT idea and will have a big impact! Maybe there could be iterations of the same idea, and bringing back "graduates" of the program to help out in the workshop in subsequent years. Awesome video too.

I love the idea of having the students come back as teachers!! Pay it forward :)

Found this through a friend. Good luck!

I think this is a great idea and if it doesn't win on here for some reason, I really hope you keep looking for other ways to make it happen. :)

this is SUCH a good idea. wish i had a similar resource in high school.

A very powerfully motivated idea with an adorable video!! I was definitely one of those girls that assumed all three of the points you've listed, took my first CS class in my sophomore year of college, and am now majoring. I deeply regret not being exposed to CS sooner; even though AP Computer Science was offered at my high school, it never seemed appealing and I always heard my classmates complain about the way it was taught and all the boring homework they had. At the time, I thought I made the right decision in not registering for AP Computer Science. Now, I realize that it's probably because we must change the way computer science is taught to students; there needs to be more emphasis on innovation, creativity, collaboration and inspiration. I think this project would be the perfect opportunity to change the minds of all those girls that had the same assumptions I held at one point--with Heidi's idea, $2,500 and a weekend could just change so many lives. :)

Your story is very similar to mine (and so many of my classmantes!) Thanks so much for sharing--it reaffirms everything I've been working on!

I love the idea Heidi! However, $10 per student for lunches and snacks for over a week might not be enough? Perhaps you can provide snacks that will be equivalent of $10 per student, but either get another sponsor or encourages students to bring their own lunches. Or, schedule it at a time that doesn't involve mealtime to cut costs. Also, printing is expensive even if you get a deal (think: colored images, diagrams, etc, and costs for binding the packets) so $200 will have to be used very wisely. If you provide them with electronic versions, that might give them an option of 1. studying the material ahead of class to prepare more, 2. cutting costs, 3. saving paper. Just some suggestions- but I absolutely LOVE the idea!

Wow, thanks for the thorough budget analysis and helpful hints!! I really like the idea of using electronic curriculum packets.

I love the idea Heidi! However, $10 per student for lunches and snacks for over a week might not be enough? Perhaps you can provide snacks that will be equivalent of $10 per student, but either get another sponsor or encourages students to bring their own lunches. Or, schedule it at a time that doesn't involve mealtime to cut costs. Also, printing is expensive even if you get a deal (think: colored images, diagrams, etc, and costs for binding the packets) so $200 will have to be used very wisely. If you provide them with electronic versions, that might give them an option of 1. studying the material ahead of class to prepare more, 2. cutting costs, 3. saving paper. Just some suggestions- but I absolutely LOVE the idea!

Love the thought, love the video, definitely voting for this one.

Thanks for the support!

I wish I had something like this when i was in high school so I could learn more about the opportunities in the CS industry and about coding, instead of just assuming things. CS is so useful and there is so many fun things to learn. This sounds so exciting :) You should post up all the projects they create on a website.

there are*

It would be awesome to have a website to display all the projects that come out of this program. Thanks for the great idea!!

I love this idea! I signed on to upload my own video proposal, and I decided that I'm voting for this one!! I wish there had been a program like this when I was a kid.

Thank you so much for your nice comment. I wish I had discovered CS in earlier too!

This is a great idea. Is it designed as a one time, one day workshop? Is there any follow up? Loved the video.

Thank you for your comment! The program is designed to be a one-weekend workshop (something that can be accomplished with the $2500 fund), which is just a starting point to a much larger impact. During this one-weekend event, girls will develop personal relationships with their mentors and uncover passions that they never knew they had. These will continue on well beyond the weekend event. I am also working on partnering up with local tech companies and organizations to help sponsor other other follow-up events in the future. Thanks again!